Research is Tentative, but That’s Okay: Overcoming Misconceptions about Scientific Tentativeness through Refutation Texts

Flemming, Danny; Kimmerle, Joachim; Cress, Ulrike; Sinatra, Gale M.

doi:10.1080/0163853x.2019.1629805

Cited by 22 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Our questionnaire materials had well-defined answers that were readily available via search. Research should evaluate the utility of search for other types of inaccurate and even ambiguous or inconsistent information (e.g., Flemming, Kimmerle, Cress, & Sinatra, 2020). This has proven useful for examining students' understandings of historical topics with real world materials from varied sources (e.g., Britt & Aglinskas, 2002;Donovan, Zhan, & Rapp, 2018b;Seixas, 1994;Wineburg, 2000).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Look it up: Online search reduces the problematic effects of exposures to inaccuracies

Donovan

Rapp

2020

Mem Cogn

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People often reproduce information they read, which is beneficial when that information is accurate. Unfortunately, people are also often exposed to inaccurate information, with subsequent reproductions allowing for problematic decisions and behaviors. One empirically validated consequence of exposures to inaccuracies is that after reading falsehoods, participants are more likely to make errors answering related questions than if they previously read accurate statements, particularly for unfamiliar information. Interventions designed to attenuate these reproductions are often ineffective, at least as studied in tasks that restrict participants to generating answers based on text content and relevant prior knowledge. In the real world, however, people have access to outside resources to evaluate information. In three experiments, we tested whether affording the option to search for relevant online information following exposure to inaccurate statements would reduce reproductions of those inaccuracies on a post-reading task. Participants given the opportunity to search for information were less likely to reproduce inaccurate information and more likely to produce correct responses, in comparison to the performance of participants who were not allowed to search. We also tested whether warnings about potentially inaccurate information would encourage searches and inform responses. While warnings increased searching, additional reductions in inaccurate reproductions were not observed. Given the contingencies of many lab tasks, reproductions of inaccurate information might be overestimated. Resources available in the real world can offer useful supports for reducing the influence of and uncertainty associated with inaccurate exposures, consistent with contemporary accounts of memory and comprehension.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Look it up: Online search reduces the problematic effects of exposures to inaccuracies

Donovan

Rapp

2020

Mem Cogn

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“…While laypeople adequately assess argument strength to be greater when it is supported by a greater amount of evidence (Corner and Hahn, 2009;Hendriks et al, 2020), they may sometimes not take prior studies into account when assessing the probability of an effect to be true (Thompson et al, 2020). Individuals might assume that the tentativeness included in scientific information means that the scientific results have limited credibility (Flemming et al, 2015); however, in one study that gave readers a refutation text alerting them that this assumption is wrong, the assumption was successfully reduced (Flemming et al, 2020). Similarly, a stronger epistemic belief regarding the uncertainty of science might alleviate the adverse effects of scientific tentativeness on the credibility of information Kimmerle et al, 2015).…”

Section: Evidence Evaluation and Scientific Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Constraints and Affordances of Online Engagement With Scientific Information—A Literature Review

et al. 2020

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Many urgent problems that societies currently face—from climate change to a global pandemic—require citizens to engage with scientific information as members of democratic societies as well as to solve problems in their personal lives. Most often, to solve their epistemic aims (aims directed at achieving knowledge and understanding) regarding such socio-scientific issues, individuals search for information online, where there exists a multitude of possibly relevant and highly interconnected sources of different perspectives, sometimes providing conflicting information. The paper provides a review of the literature aimed at identifying (a) constraints and affordances that scientific knowledge and the online information environment entail and (b) individuals' cognitive and motivational processes that have been found to hinder, or conversely, support practices of engagement (such as critical information evaluation or two-sided dialogue). Doing this, a conceptual framework for understanding and fostering what we call online engagement with scientific information is introduced, which is conceived as consisting of individual engagement (engaging on one's own in the search, selection, evaluation, and integration of information) and dialogic engagement (engaging in discourse with others to interpret, articulate and critically examine scientific information). In turn, this paper identifies individual and contextual conditions for individuals' goal-directed and effortful online engagement with scientific information.

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“…In line with this argument, it seems to be a common finding in the context of journalism research that "upon reading journalistic articles about novel scientific findings, readers who recognize the tentative nature of the findings rate the journalistic article that reports these findings as less credible" [Flemming, Kimmerle et al, 2020]. From a scientific point of view, these findings seem surprising because acknowledging the tentativeness of scientific information is a common and reasonable practice in academic communities [Hyland, 1996].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Providing health information via Twitter: professional background and message style influence source trustworthiness, message credibility and behavioral intentions

König¹,

Breves²

2021

JCOM

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Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the global community, politicians as well as scientists increasingly turn to Twitter to share urgent health information using various message styles. The results of our 2x2 between-subject experiment show that if a Tweet is written in lower-case letters, participants perceive the information source as more trustworthy. Furthermore, the information is perceived as more credible, and people are more willing to read the health information and share it via social media. Furthermore, scientists are perceived as possessing more expertise than politicians. However, politicians are perceived as possessing more integrity and benevolence than scientists.

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Research is Tentative, but That’s Okay: Overcoming Misconceptions about Scientific Tentativeness through Refutation Texts

Cited by 22 publications

References 50 publications

Look it up: Online search reduces the problematic effects of exposures to inaccuracies

Look it up: Online search reduces the problematic effects of exposures to inaccuracies

Constraints and Affordances of Online Engagement With Scientific Information—A Literature Review

Providing health information via Twitter: professional background and message style influence source trustworthiness, message credibility and behavioral intentions

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